The Wall Street Journal - 07.04.2020

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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. ** Tuesday, April 7, 2020 |A


U.S. NEWS


March 12
Governor limits gatherings to 250
people; all public schools are closed.
Some of the first Taneytown resi-
dents affected by the coronavirus re-
sponse were students like 14-year-old
Arthur Wilson and his 15-year-old
cousin and neighbor, Wyatt Stonesi-
fer. The Northwest Middle School
eighth graders say they have slid into
an easy routine, playing videogames
and shooting hoops next to a set of
railroad tracks.
“Somewhat boring,” Arthur said.
School will remain closed at least
through April 24, with instruction
moving online.

March 16
Governor orders bars and restaurants
to close (though takeout, drive-
through and delivery are allowed);
limits gatherings to 50 people.

Antrim 1844, a 40-room inn with
an upscale restaurant and event space
on 24 acres, shut its doors soon after
the decree. “We were literally put out
of business,” owner Richard Mollett
said. “I had no choice but to lay off
about 72 people.”
Mr. Mollett, 69, pegged March rev-
enue at $50,000, a fraction of the
$400,000 or so he took in during the
same period last year. He said he
hopes to get a loan as part of the gov-
ernment’s $2 trillion stimulus package
that would let him hire back staff.
“When you hear someone say this
is going to last until July or August, I
just don’t think the country can stand

that,” he said. “I know Taneytown
can’t. I know I can’t.”
The same day the inn closed, Thun-
derhead Bowl & Grill on the eastern
edge of town had to take its bowling
alley and restaurant seating offline.
But owner Mark Kraus, 50, said a
brainstorming session led to a possi-
ble lifeline: reviving the long-dormant
drive-through window.
Now between 30 and 40 customers
a day roll up alongside the blue metal
wall for homemade fare like meatloaf
and pot pies, he said. Still, he said
business is off 75% and he has had to
pare back his staff of 28 by about half.
Mr. Kraus said he thinks Thunder-
head can last a month under these
conditions. “It would hurt,” he said,
but added, “I plan to be here.”
At Bess and Ben’s Country Kitchen,
owner Rod Gross began offering deliv-
ery, in addition to carryout, when he
had to close the 52-seat dining room.
Just two days earlier, a steady crowd
of regulars sat down for breakfast. By
early April, the restaurant was limp-
ing along. Mr. Gross, 69, said he
stopped paying himself and divvied up
the dwindling income among his 14
employees. Short on cash to make
payroll, he said he had to dip into
emergency reserves.
Now he is counting on a federal
small-business loan to tide him over.
“I don’t think we can continue with-
out that little boost. In fact, I know
we won’t,” he said.

March 22
Pat and Steve Raley had plans to
invite friends over for dinner at their
home in the Carroll Vista 55-plus
community. “Then the virus came, so
I decided to have a Meals-on-Wheels
sort of thing,” said Ms. Raley, 79, a
retired nurse.
Mr. Raley, 80, cooked up a 15-
pound turkey. The couple prepared
stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry
sauce, rolls and an applesauce cake.
Then they set out to deliver the feast
to nine families, leaving it in garages
and on doorsteps and giving long-dis-
tance hugs.
“We just felt so good we did some-
thing that maybe put a smile on
somebody else’s face,” Ms. Raley said.

Among the grateful recipients
were Alice and Chuck Odell, a 92-
year-old World War II veteran. Neigh-
bors have taken them “all kinds of
soups and dishes and desserts,” he
said. “People here are very caring.”

March 23
Governor orders all nonessential busi-
nesses to close.
Like many other businesses across
the U.S., Taneytown Family Barber-
shop shut down.
In Taneytown, barbers, gift shops
and other storefronts taped notes to
their front door telling customers
they were closed indefinitely.
“Please take care and we will see
you when this is over,” reads the note
at Buddy’s Place Dog Grooming. Two
weeks ago, the shop bustled as 30-
year-old proprietor Stephani Rickerd
gave a trim to a schnauzer named
Mabel.
When Ms. Rickerd stopped by days
later, “it looked like something in the
‘Walking Dead,’” she said. “Eerie.”
Her husband is still being paid
even though the auto shop where he
works on an Army base is closed, she
said, but the grooming business is
their main income source. “We have a
nest egg, but we weren’t planning on
using it this way,” she said.
Yet Ms. Rickerd is charging ahead
with a planned move to a larger build-
ing across the street. She signed the
lease, and two weeks ago her husband
and father helped paint the interior.

March 25
Taneytown municipal playgrounds are
closed, cordoned off with yellow tape.
Taneytown’s second-largest em-
ployer, Flowserve Corp., on March 26
closed its 235-worker facility for two
days after an employee began showing
symptoms associated with Covid-19,
the Texas-based company said.
Flowserve traced the employee’s
contacts and quarantined some em-
ployees, and had the plant disinfected
over two days, said a spokesman for
the company, whose products include
industrial pumps, seals and valves.
The facility has since reopened.

March 27
Maryland orders day-care centers to
shut down.
When Lisa Patterson heard that
day-care centers have to shut, she
quickly applied for, and received, a
waiver allowing her New Beginnings
Christian Learning Center to stay
open—though only for the children of
essential workers. The change meant
reducing enrollment from 103 children
to 44, and cutting employees’ hours.

Ms. Patterson, 51, said she bor-
rowed a forehead thermometer from
a relative after finding none to buy
and stocked up on alcohol wipes. But
she said she had a jarring middle-of-
the-night realization: She didn’t
check with her staff before requesting
the waiver. The next day, she asked if
they felt fine about it. “Every one of
them said yes,” she said.

March 30
Governor issues stay-at-home order
for all residents.
Taneytown Mayor Bradley Wantz
said he worries that some small busi-
nesses won’t survive the slowdown,
even as supermarkets, liquor stores
and a few other establishments la-
beled essential keep ringing up sales.
And he wonders about the linger-
ing effects on the 266-year-old town
after the crisis ends.
For now and the foreseeable fu-
ture, he said, he presides over a ghost
town. “It’s creating a new normal,” he
said, “and that’s a little terrifying.”

TANEYTOWN, Md.—In this historic
burg surrounded by farmland, there are
no more in-person Sunday services at
Taneytown Baptist Church. No daily
breakfast gatherings at Bess and Ben’s
Country Kitchen. No meetings of the
travel club at the Carroll Vista 55-plus
community.
Residents of this 3-square-mile city in
northern Maryland, population 6,800,
aren’t even supposed to leave their house
unless necessary. Inan effort to contain
the coronavirus pandemic, Maryland Gov.
Larry Hogan, a Republican, issued a stay-

at-home order to the state’s 6 million res-
idents on March 30.
“It tears at the fabric of a sense of
community,” said Chris Tillman, 57 years
old, who runs the Georges on York bed-
and-breakfast here with his wife and who
co-owns a construction company. “I’m a
handshaker and a hugger. I have to fight
my instinct every time I see somebody I
know.”
Here is a look at how life in Taneytown
changed over a few weeks in March, as
state officials steadily ratcheted up ef-
forts to contain the virus.

BYSCOTTCALVERT

Isolated by the Crisis,


Small Town Tries to Stick Together


Residents of Taneytown, Md., like in much of the nation,
find a way to cope and help one another as restrictions
disrupt daily life. ‘People here are very caring.’

Cousins Wyatt Stonesifer, left and Arthur Wilson pass the time shooting baskets.

Lisa Patterson’s day care is still open for the children of workers deemed essential.

Taneytown Family Barbershop

Source: European Space Agency (satellite image)
Dylan Moriarty/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

1 mile
1km

TaneytownTaneytown

Bess and Ben’s
Country Kitchen

Flowserve

Antrim
1844
New
Beginnings

Thunderhead
Bowl & Grill
Carroll
Vista

140

140

194

AreaofdetailAreaofdetail

Md.

Rita Bassler gets takeout from Bess
and Ben’s Country Kitchen.

ALYSSA SCHUKAR FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (4)

WASHINGTON—The Su-
preme Court sided with fed-
eral employees raising age-dis-
crimination claims, finding
that Congress gave its civil
servants greater protection
than those in the private sec-
tor.
In a second decision issued
on Monday, the court eased
Fourth Amendment limits on
police, holding that an officer
is free to assume that a car’s
driver is its registered owner,
and to pull the vehicle over if
the owner’s license has been
revoked.
The civil-service case
turned on whether Congress,
by enacting a different antidis-
crimination provision for fed-
eral employees than it did for
those in the private-sector and
state and local government,
directed greater protection for
its own workforce. By an 8-
vote, the court said yes.
“That Congress would want
to hold the Federal Govern-
ment to a higher standard
than state and private employ-
ers is not unusual,” Justice
Samuel Alito wrote for the
court.
That was clear from the
text of the Age Discrimination
in Employment Act, he wrote,
which protects workers over



  1. As initially passed in 1967,
    the ADEA applied only to pri-
    vate employers. Amendments
    in 1974 extended the law to
    the public sector, but Congress
    used different language for the
    federal workforce than it did
    for state and local government
    employees, Justice Alito
    wrote.
    The statute’s text declares
    it unlawful to take an adverse
    employment action, such as
    dismissal, failure to promote
    or refusal to hire, “because of
    such individual’s age.”
    In other words, an individ-
    ual is entitled to sue only if
    his or her age was the decid-
    ing factor.
    But the provision for fed-
    eral employees is written more
    broadly, Justice Alito wrote,
    protecting them from a pro-
    cess tainted by discrimination
    even if they can’t prove the
    outcome would have been dif-
    ferent but for their age. It
    reads: “Personnel actions” af-
    fecting individuals aged 40
    and older “shall be made free
    from any discrimination based
    on age.”
    The case was filed by Noris
    Babb, a clinical pharmacist for
    the Department of Veterans
    Affairs in Bay Pines, Fla. In
    2014, when she turned 54, Ms.
    Babb sued the VA alleging she
    was passed over for promotion
    and lost eligibility for holiday
    pay.
    Lower courts dismissed the
    suit, finding she hadn’t shown
    that discrimination was the
    reason for those decisions.
    The evidence Ms. Babb in-
    troduced included age-related
    comments by supervisors.
    At oral arguments in Janu-
    ary, Chief Justice John Rob-
    erts prompted laughs when he
    asked a lawyer whether saying
    “OK, boomer,” to a job appli-
    cant could be proof of bias.
    On Monday, Chief Justice
    Roberts, along with Justices
    Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen
    Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, El-
    ena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch and
    Brett Kavanaugh all voted for
    Ms. Babb’s position.
    Justice Clarence Thomas, a
    former chairman of the Equal
    Employment Opportunity
    Commission, dissented.
    The case is Babb v. Wilkie.


BYJESSBRAVIN


Federal


Workers


Backed on


Age Claims


Outer Banks, said law enforce-
ment is sticking to the restric-
tions despite homeowners try-
ingtogainaccess.
The county of 36,000 per-
manent residents has just one
hospital with 24 beds and no
intensive-care unit, she said.
In the summer, when the
population swells to 300,000,
“they see things like a fish
hook in the finger,” she said.
More serious cases are trans-
ported by helicopter to trauma
centers that can be hours away
by car.
Dare County officials on
Thursday reported three cases
of Covid-19, the illness caused
by the new coronavirus.

has a clinic, but no hospital.
Tourist boards and mayors
of South Lake Tahoe, Calif.; Se-
dona, Ariz.; and Moab, Utah,
are discouraging visitors and
asking or even ordering hotels
and short-term rentals to stop
booking.
The Florida Keys last week
banned visitors but not prop-
erty owners from the chain of
islands. The Outer Banks of
North Carolina banned both
visitors and nonresident
homeowners as of mid-March.
Both areas have set up road-
blocks to enforce the bans.
Dorothy Hester, public-in-
formation officer for Dare
County, which includes the

1960s. “I think people shouldn’t
be going down there to use up
the resources and also infect
them.”
Massachusetts officials said
they have no plans to set up
roadblocks on the bridges for
now. Visitors from out of state
are asked via electronic signs
all over the Cape to self-quar-
antine for 14 days.
The Island of North Haven,
Maine, adopted a resolution last
month strongly urging outsiders
except those providing essential
services not to come to the is-
land in Penobscot Bay, reversing
what had been a ban on outsid-
ers coming to the island of 355
permanent residents. The island

way to avoid disaster.
Pamela Wilkes, a retired
health-care executive who
lives in Albany, N.Y., but owns
a second home on the Cape,
said the petition is outrageous.
“My thought is I’m a taxpayer
of Massachusetts,” she said. “I
substantially support local
business.”
But other nonresident
homeowners say they under-
stand and plan to stay away.
“There are 70- and 80-year-
old retirees down there that
are sort of our best friends,”
said Tom Chamberlain, an in-
surance agent in Bridgewater,
Mass., whose family has had a
home on the Cape since the

about going to your second
home because it’s a vacation.”
From Sedona, Ariz., to the
Florida Keys, tourist spots
across the country are trying
to figure out ways to keep out-
siders from bringing the new
coronavirus with them.
In some cases, that means
taking aggressive steps such as
banning people who own sec-
ond homes from their own
property. In other cases, it
means shutting down key ac-
cess points.
Full-time residents in these
communities say their health-
care systems weren’t built to
handle pandemics, and shut-
ting out visitors is the only

Resort towns rely on visitors
as their economic lifeblood, but
as the new coronavirus pan-
demic rages, many are asking
nonresidents to stay away.
More than 12,000 residents
of Cape Cod, Mass., signed a
petition recently asking au-
thorities to turn away visitors
and nonresident homeowners
from the two bridges that are
the only roads in to the Bos-
ton-area summer playland.
“It’s a stay-at-home order
for a reason,” said Beth Hick-
man of South Yarmouth, who
started the petition, in a radio
interview Thursday. “It’s not


BYJOEBARRETT


Tourist Communities Plead With Outsiders to Stay Away

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